


Baked

by gloomsparkler



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Baked Goods, Draco Malfoy Needs a Hug, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry Potter Needs a Hug, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Idiots in Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:27:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27234976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloomsparkler/pseuds/gloomsparkler
Summary: Draco bakes.  Harry likes baked goods.  Things get weird.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 22
Kudos: 50





	1. An unassuming little door of heavy wood

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!

_ It would help _ , Draco thought, _ if Harry would just stop staring at him so much _ . Harry’s stupid green eyes following him, see him, felt intolerable. Not that Draco deserved to be comfortable. But surely a bit of invisibility wasn’t too much to ask?

Coming back to Hogwarts felt like walking into a fucking grave. Draco wouldn’t have even turned towards its direction if it hadn’t been a condition to his parole. He’d spent three dark months in Azkaban. It was easier there, by himself in the dark with the whispers and cries and screams. The anger and violence of the guards made sense.

Here, nothing makes sense.

McGonagall, Circe take her, is grim-faced and haunted looking, frail underneath her heavy robes. Her spine is perfectly straight. 

“Eighth years,” she announces to the room before the feast. The heaps of meat look greasy to Draco, and he averts his eyes to the pile of bread, which looks dry. 

“ _ All _ of our eighth years are welcome,” McGonagall continues, and Draco feels the burn of angry glares on his back. Her words wash over him, but he gets the pertinent bits. They are a single house, Hogwarts House, and they’ll be united in their loathing of Draco and the other war criminals. At least, Draco figures that’s the subtext in McGonagall’s little speech.

Draco nibbles on roasted carrots, something to do with his hands and his face until he can get up and leave. He’s almost at the point when it’s just polite to leave when something flies into his plate, causing it to tip into his water goblet. Well. That’s his cue to leave. Draco doesn’t look to see what created the upset, he knows  _ he’s  _ the real cause of it, anyway.

He hears Harry say something the table over, something low and furious. He hates that he always hears Harry’s stupid voice. Hermione’s higher pitched response, their voices harmonized in irritation.

Draco’s back feels vulnerable as he leaves the room.

Most of the castle is off-limits. The evidence of Draco’s crimes are everywhere: walls collapsing on themselves, the nip of air where the frigid air blows in through cracks, students fighting and crying in the hallway. Draco makes his way with his eyes down, blocks out the snide remarks and the little shoves. He lived with Old Tom and his band of merry men for two summers. This is nothing, Draco repeats to himself. This is nothing compared to that. He almost believes it.

It’s hard to think of the past, to remember a time when he strode through the hallways easily. But it wasn’t easy then, was it? It was just a different flavor of fear. A different type of shame then. Draco was becoming familiar with all of the different tastes of fear, of shame.

His mind quiets, though, when he reaches his destination. The kitchens are busy, house-elves moving fast and easy, cooking heaps of food for the students and faculty upstairs. Draco stays out of sight, but they know he’s there. Their voices quiet as he moves down the hall, and even though he knows they can’t see him, something in their magic must alert them to his presence. There’s so little he knows of house-elves and their magic. Another thing to humble him, another thing to add to the list of Things Draco Must Change.

There’s a small door right before the large stone doorway to the kitchen proper. An unassuming little door of heavy wood. Draco wasn’t even sure what caused him to open it the first time he’d seen it. 

Once the door closes behind him, Draco hears the crescendo of elf voices, but he ignores them. When he first came, he’d thought it was the strangest potions lab he’d ever seen until he realized it was, in fact, just a small kitchen. He still puzzles over its purpose: why have something this small when a large, castle-sized kitchen was just outside? Did the castle really need another pantry with stasis charms, another cooking hearth?

At first, he’d just sat in the kitchen, soothed by its silence. He’d brought his books down here and studied in the flickering light of the fire of the cooking hearth. Eventually, though, there was only so much studying even he could do, and he’d snuck a peek into the pantry. It was full of simple things, flour and butter and eggs.

Draco had found a cookbook in the library and dragged the huge book down to the tiny kitchen, not  _ his  _ kitchen, no, just ‘the tiny kitchen.’ He didn’t have ownership over anything anymore, least of all anything in Hogwarts, this brilliant magical castle he’d almost single-handedly destroyed.

Draco stops that train of thought. If he got too distracted, he’d cock up the scones. They were surprisingly tricky, the butter needed to stay cold, he’d found. Draco hadn’t expected to be good at baking, but it was like potions. Precision, attention to details, experience. He’d baked the same recipe over and over again, and he was finally getting comfortable with it to experiment. Carrots and cinnamon, yes. Carrots and blueberries, too much liquid. Blueberries and a nice sharp cheddar, wonderful. He was almost hungry, sometimes, when the warm smell wafted out of the cooking hearth.

He’d taken to leaving the fruits of his labor on the counter, and it always disappeared. Draco supposed the elves took it. Sometimes he’d tuck one into the pockets of his robes, a comforting weight. A reminder that he could do something successfully, something that was simple and good. Something to nibble on in his bed, something vaguely sweet on his tongue before the nightmares came.

Harry was slowly going crazy. Maybe not slowly. Maybe he’d always been crazy, but now that Voldemort was dead, he had the space in his head to finally  _ notice  _ it. He’d always noticed Draco. He was impossible to ignore. Draco is too thin these days, a slender ghost in robes, his hair a bright shock in the halls and classes. Draco wears it differently these days, shorn on the sides, the top long and sliding over his eyes in a silky curtain. He always looked cold, and Harry hated it.

The worst was the way Draco smelled these days. Harry tried to be inconspicuous, but Ron and Hermione had both looked at him with incredulous eyes as Harry sniffed Draco every time Harry slid past Draco in the halls or walked past his table.

Draco smells  _ sweet _ , like brown sugar and vanilla had baked itself permanently in his robes. It drives Harry wild. Harry was used to Draco’s smell being something fancy, smoky and tart like lemons, complex. But Draco doesn’t smell complex anymore. He smells like something Harry wants to eat whole, and Harry can’t stand it.

Hermione had helped him with his sexuality, a bit a time, over the years. Harry now owned a stash of books with thoroughly embarrassing titles and completely fascinating pictures. He was gay. It was fine, mostly. It’d be easier if he was attracted to someone else, someone easier. Neville looks surprisingly fine. Blaise is gorgeous, forever draping himself over people and furniture.

But nothing got Harry going like the flash of Draco’s grey eyes, and the damnable  _ smell  _ of him.


	2. An odd sort of relief

Draco’s been bracing for it, so when it finally comes, there’s an odd sort of relief that comes with the bright burst of pain.

The stinging hex snaps against the planes of his back. Draco endured far worse with Old Tom and friends (which sounds so benign, like the characters in a children’s book), but still, he can’t stop himself from flinching, from the small cry that escapes him. He staggers to the side of the hall, but keeps forcing his legs forward.  _ Keep moving _ , he tells himself.  _ Keep moving. It’s harder to hit a moving target _ . He forces himself to move, but his eyes flick back, trying to assess the danger behind him.

He doesn’t anticipate Hermione Granger, but to be far, no one anticipates Granger. She’s ruthless intelligence, wrapped in soft brown skin and sweetly poofy hair. She throws a  _ body bind _ on a seventh year who made the mistake of grinning at her and gesturing towards Malfoy. A bloody body bind, like she’s an  _ auror _ . Or, Draco muses, like the war hero she is.

Granger’s face is flat as she looks at the boy. Her eyes meet Draco’s, and he nods. In thanks, in acknowledgement that she’s a force of nature, in approval, Draco isn’t sure. Something softens in Granger’s face, although her jaw is set. She talks low, marshalling students, directing some to run for McGonagall. 

Draco knows he’s supposed to stick around, but he drags his aching body to Advanced Runes. He sits carefully, although the pain is starting to lessen already. He’s too skinny, he knows, there’s nothing to cushion the pain. He knows he could spell it away, but the pain feels honest. Not deserved. Honest. There’s a difference, Draco thinks, although he can’t immediately call to mind what that difference may be.

Granger comes to class late. She offers a slip to the professor, a transplant from Beauxbatons who looks faintly alarmed by Granger’s non-deferential manner. Granger sits in her usual place and doesn’t look at Draco. Draco’s chest unclenches, although he knows this situation is unlikely to be over. He’d seen the anger in Granger’s face as she looked at the student.

Draco had considered sending her a letter of apology, but stopped when he actually considered what he would end up writing.  _ Dear Granger, terribly sorry you were held hostage at the Manor and tortured by my auntie. Bad business all around. Deepest sorrow, etc., etc _ . No. Some things are unforgivable. Apologies would just cheapen the horror, he told himself. Besides, it wouldn’t give Granger any comfort, would it? And what was an apology but a way to begin amends? 

Draco decides then, as he opens his Runes textbook, to make amends to Granger. He won’t apologize. He can do something kind for her, can’t he? Draco isn’t sure what kindness looks like without buying something. He taps his quill against the desk, considering. The money mostly went to reparations. The Manor was a money pit, and without money to preserve it, it was just a pit these days. Amazingly, the Malfoys held the Manor still thanks to a complicated patchwork of the entailment, arcane legal mechanisms, and wizarding house magic. 

An idea so stupid crosses his mind, Draco flinches away from it. Stupid. He has no money, no social standing, Granger needs nothing from him class-wise… but he can bake, now? He could bake her something? A muggle food of some sort that she probably grew up eating? It’s a ridiculous idea.  _ Baking _ , like a  _ house elf. _ His father would die of  _ shame _ .

It’s that subsequent thought - Lucius Malfoy dying of shame - that decides it for Draco. Right then. He’ll just… find out what Muggles eat and make that for her. No problem.

  
  
  


It’s a problem. There is nothing in the library on Muggle food apart for the treatise on Muggle trenchers, because apparently Muggles didn’t have plates in the 1300s. Draco doubts that it’s a good authority on modern Muggle cuisine.

He tries to ask the house elves for their thoughts, but the one he manages to ask won’t stop crying. A friend of Dobby’s, then, and Draco cringes inwardly. He apologizes to the elf for her loss, and she’s so astonished that her tears dry and she looks at him in bewilderment. He turns and leaves the kitchen and heads back into the safety of the little kitchen.

Draco opens the cookery and tries to find the most Muggle-looking food. Biscuits are always popular, aren’t they? Draco sees a recipe for  paté sablée with a smear of lemon curd between two biscuits. Perhaps it’s a tad elevated for a Muggle-born girl (his brain carefully avoids the other term he’s used for Granger for years). But it should be good. He thinks she’ll like the lemon. Sweet, yes, but sharp acidity cutting through anything too saccharine.

When he’s finished, the little kitchen smells divine, and Draco’s mind has calmed to an almost meditative state. The elves give him a small box, and Draco fills it with the paté sablée biscuits. 

Draco hesitates and drops a short note into the box. There. He leaves his little sanctuary ( _ not _ his) and finds the elf who cried earlier. Draco politely asks her to get the box to Granger safely, his manners formal. She looks at him warily as Draco executes a shallow bow (might be overselling it, but he’s got a lot to make up for with elves), but takes the box and apparates with a sharp crack.

Draco rolls his shoulders and tries not to imagine how his small gift will be received. He knows it’s unlikely that she’ll eat any of it. His stomach twists and he draws his spine straight. His status is already as low as it can get, right? Humiliation should be nothing new. 

It’s getting late, but Draco goes back into the little kitchen. He’ll start a bread next, let it rise overnight. Bread is good. It’s physically demanding and repetitive. It’ll turn off his mind from whatever mockery and anger is surely being provoked in the Gryffindor common room.

The elf appears, her small hands fluttery and nervous. Harry’s used to it from the elves, but he wished they wouldn’t be. 

“Mr. Harry Potter,  _ sir _ ,” the elf begins, her high voice breathless. Harry pastes on a polite smile. 

The elf pivots towards Hermione. “This is being a gift for you, Miss Hermione Granger, ma’am.” Her hands thrust out a large bakery box.

Hermione takes it, one eyebrow raised. “Who sent this?” She looks pleased, but Harry knows she’s trying not to show it.

Ron sits up, pulling his head out of Hermione’s lap. “Smells good,” he says.

The elf looks uncertain. “It’s from Mr. Draco Malfoy,” she tells Hermione.

Harry’s wand is out before he realizes it, and a  _ protego _ bursts forth. The box flies out of Hermione’s hands and lands with a thump in front of the fire. It remains closed. Harry breaths hard, watching the box.

“Oh!” exclaims the house elf. “Mr. Draco Malfoy made those for Miss Hermione Granger and asked Bitsy to bring them to Miss Hermione Granger safely!” She looks like she might cry.

“He won’t punish you,” Harry tells her, his words sharp with irritation.

“No, he won’t be punishing Bitsy,” she agrees, “but Bitsy  _ said  _ she would be taking them  _ safely  _ but Bitsy didn’t know that Mr. Harry Potter would be  _ hating  _ biscuits so much!” Her eyes fill with tears.

Harry takes a moment to parse that, but Granger’s mind, as usual, gets there first.

“Bitsy,” she says, “did Malfoy buy me biscuits?”

Bitsy shakes her head no. 

“Where did they come from?” Ron asked. His face is somewhere between amused and angry.

“The biscuits be coming from Mr. Draco Malfoy’s kitchen,” she says. 

It takes a while, but Hermione gets Bitsy to tell her some incredibly bizarre things. One, Malfoy  _ bakes _ . Two, Malfoy bakes in  _ Hogwarts _ . Three, the stuff Malfoy bakes is  _ edible _ . It’s not hexed or cursed or full of eldritch horror. 

They’re just… biscuits. That Malfoy baked for Hermione.

Harry’s out of his chair with the box in his hands first. He opens it, bracing for something to jump or slither out. Something nasty.

“Jammy dodgers!” Hermione cries.

Ron looks longingly at them. “Lemon curd, I think.”

Harry keeps the (probably) evil box of biscuits away from Ron. 

“Bitsy, what’s wrong with them?” Harry asks sharply.

Bitsy considers it. “Bitsy would be sprinkling some caster sugar on the top. Bitsy likes biscuits shiny.”

Hermione pulls out her wind. Harry doesn’t know half of what she’s doing.

Finally, she lowers it and reaches out her hand. Harry can’t let her do this to herself. He shakes his head. “Me first,” he says.

Harry hasn’t been hungry in months. He’s not good at recognizing hunger, he knows he’s too thin. But when the lemon and sweetly buttery biscuit hit his tongue he groans. Harry knows he’s being stupid, but he grabs a second.

Ron snags the box out of Harry’s hands and watches Harry for a moment. “Feel like dying or anything?”

Harry shakes his head and says around the crumbs flying out of his mouth, “They’re really good. Probably evil. But really good.”

Ron waits, probably to see if Harry explodes. Bitsy looks annoyed. “Bitsy be saying to Mr. Harry Potter and Mr. Harry Potter’s friends that the biscuits are fine. Bitsy would never be giving Mr. Harry Potter and his friends poison.”

Hermione looks interested at this. She asks Bitsy about house elves' ability to sense poison (which is apparently excellent), as Ron takes a biscuit for himself and pauses. He puts it down.

“What d’you suppose Malfoy’s game is with this?”

Hermione takes one and nibbles thoughtfully. “Possibly... a thank you for me?” She tells them about earlier in the day. She looks tired at the end of her story. “What was the point?” she asks.

“Jammy dodgers are tasty?” Ron guesses.

Hermione rubs her face. “We won a war to have students getting hexed in the back in the hallways.”

“That’s right,” Harry says evenly. “War criminals are getting punished for…” He doesn’t finish. He’s not hungry anymore, and the lemon sours in his mouth.

Hermione closes her eyes. “It’s unrealistic to expect that Hogwarts would be,” she pauses, “the same. As before. But aren’t you tired? I’m so tired of this.”

Harry isn’t sure what to say. He hadn’t wanted to come back to Hogwarts at all, but Hermione dragged him as Molly pushed him out of the Burrow. He’d been nearly silent all summer, and he hadn’t the energy to argue with Hermione that the idea of Hogwarts filled Harry with dread. Everywhere Harry looked was a bad memory. His nightmares were unrelenting, and he took Dreamless Sleep every night. Still, the nightmares crept around the potion, and Harry woke every morning achy and exhausted. The idea of being without Hermione and Ron was even more frightening than this fucking tomb, though, so Harry allowed himself to be pulled/pushed.

Ron eats a jammy dodger and stares into the fire. “I still don’t get what Malfoy’s doing, though.” He gets that distant look he sometimes gets when he plays chess.

Hermione sighs. “Maybe he’s just… baking.”

Harry doesn’t believe it. Not one bit.


End file.
